Illuminating Perspectives through Critical Visual Literacy: 56th Annual IVLA Con

Walter Benjamin argued that authentic artworks possess an "aura" that dissipates through mechanical reproduction. This presentation explores whether AI-generated art can possess an aura by examining AI art's philosophical and perceptual implications through Benjamin's concepts of ritual, authenticity, and aura. It assesses if human qualities integral to the aura - the artist's hand, connection to ritual, embeddedness in tradition - can be replicated by AI systems aggregating human inputs. Drawing from the author's artistic practice combining analog and AI-generated elements through collage, it explores how this human-AI interplay may give rise to new forms of aura. The glitches, errors and unintended resonances emerging from such collaborations could imbue the artworks with an authenticity akin to the traditional aura. While AI represents a contextual shift as profound as photography for Benjamin, the aura may not solely arise from human labor but the serendipitous conjunctions when technologies intersect with "human all to human"creative impulses. By embracing AI's generative potential while remaining attuned to its auratic resonances, artists may forge an expanded, cybernetic aura for the 21st century.